- Mason gave a polite bow and a wave as he finished his performance - Boulevard of Broken Dreams, a la fiddle. Lindsey Sterling had made it look so easy - he was pretty sure that he'd done okay, but it had sounded much better in his head, and in the Youtube video he'd watched - and played along with - religiously.
Ah, well. Nobody threw bottles at him or booed him off the stage, so it could've been worse. He was happy for any opportunity to get to play; this was a rare night where Madeline was busy elsewhere, and he was left on his own. Usually they shared the stage, either singing together at karaoke or him backing her vocals up with the fiddle - he never minded it, but sometimes it was nice to have the spotlight all to himself.
It would've been better if he knew he'd knocked it out of the park, but...well, practice was practice! He knew it didn't sound bad by a long shot - he'd just flubbed the plucking part, because plucking was hard. At least it was recognizable as, like, music, which some of the performances that night had not been, in Mason's personal (judgemental) opinion.
Mason stepped off the little stage in the corner of the cafe and began packing up his fiddle, mind already drifting homeward. Any minute now Madeline would be getting home and wondering where he was, but somehow his feet weren't hurrying him along the way they usually did. As he zipped up his instrument bag, he glanced around the room; there was a lull in performances, and Mason smiled to himself as the chatter and clinking glasses washed over him.
Sometimes, it was just nice to get out of the house for a little while.
Surely Madeline wouldn't begrudge him a few extra minutes, right? A little reward for semi-successfully performing in front of a crowd that mostly didn't seem that interested? Maybe one of those fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies that always smelled so good...
